MAN ABOUT TOWN

Drop and Roll Another of the free (FREE!) events on at Fed Square as part of Fringe, this family-friendly show is a collaboration between one of Australia's leading parkour and free-running companies, Trace Elements , and South Morang's First Impressions Youth Theatre . The result is a fascinating display of athleticism and community cultural development presented by a combination of professional traceurs and amateur traceurs and traceuses , with video used to tell the story behind the show. While not quite as tight as the show by Team Loco which it follows up, in some ways Drop and Roll is even more engaging, as it shows that the skills on display can be cultivated by anyone, given time and dedication. Three whoops of awed delight out of five. The Kindness of Stranglers Written and produced by Rebecca Cook, this show about an office drone at an ad agency who decides to try devoting his life to doing good unfortunately failed to engage or entertain me. The narrative was confus...

Team Loko's Human Graffiti This free show, on as part of the Fringe programme at Fed Square, is TOTALLY BODACIOUS* and should be seen by all. As displays of physical prowess go - think backflips performed from the temporary platform created by the interlinked hands of two lithe and muscular blokes (note to self: don't drool) and forward rolls performed by two ace chicks off a head-high platform - it's fast-paced, spectacular, and is guaranteed to make you feel more unfit than you've ever felt in your life. Three and a half awed gasps out of five . Hitlerhoff An unholy fusion of the lives of Adolph Hitler and David Hasslehoff that's performed by a cast of three with the assistance of some simply superb video projection (congrats to Anto Skene and Puck Murphy) this twisted piece of camp irony was outrageous and laugh-out-loud funny. It did seem to drag a little towards the end, so I think it might have benefitted from being maybe 10 minutes shorter (though this may a...

It never rains but it pours: in the opening days of The Age Melbourne Fringe Festival, my boss has asked me to take on a new project: the creation of a brand new fortnightly GLBT arts, lifestyle and entertainment magazine. I've agreed. So, from Monday I'll be stepping across from being editor of MCV to editing this new, as-of-yet unnamed fortnightly magazine. So, oh denizens of the arts worlds, what I want to ask you is: What do you want to see in a new arts and culture magazine, which, though stylishly designed and catering for GLBT readers, is also envisaged as having a much wider readership? And do you have any great ideas for a name? I'm all ears! Or eyes! Or something!

3000 artists. Almost 300 shows. 19 days of arts goodness. What's not to love? Yes, The Age Melbourne Fringe Festival kicks off in just one more day, and I can't wait! My copy of the programme is already thoroughly adorned with circled shows and hand-written exclamation marks and asterisks, and my diary is bulging with dates for the delights to come. It's my favourite festival in the world, and unlike other Fringe festivals around the planet, which predominantly feature interstate (hello Adelaide) or international guests (yes Edinburgh, I'm looking at you), the Melbourne Fringe consists almost entirely of shows and exhibitions and indefinable creative strangeness created by Melbourne artists. It's an expression in art of Melbourne's creative and cultural soul. As I said before, what's not to love? There's wonderful comedy to be seen, such as Andrew McClelland's not to be missed special short return season of A Somewhat Accurate History of Pirates (1...

Photographer Jill Greenberg, you're a bloody deadset legend! The above, photoshopped image is an outtake from a recent series of shots the US photographer took for Atlantic magazine. You can read the full story here ...

Illustrator Maurice Sendak, author of the classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are , has publicly come out at the age of 80. In a New York Times interview, Sendak responded to the question if there was anything he’d never been asked. “Well, that I’m gay,” he answered. “I just didn’t think it was anybody’s business.” Sendak lived with Dr Eugene Glynn, a psychoanalyst, for 50 years before Glynn’s death in May 2007. Sendak said he never told his parents about his sexuality because he wanted to make them happy; and that he hadn’t come out when younger because the idea of a gay man writing children’s books would have hurt his career when he was in his 20s and 30s, the paper reported.

more animals

Two more brief impressions of some of the events I've attended in recent weeks (certainly more recent than the last post of this nature, which covered events that were staged up to two months ago). I think this should cover the majority of them, save for the latest, Vamp , which I'll cover in my next post. Oh look, there have been a few events or occasions here and there that I won't be blogging about; the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards , for example (I was seated next to one of the Premier's police bodyguards; a big burly chap who didn't read much but who was an interesting conversationalist indeed - though I felt sorry for him that he had to sit through so many speeches at so many events just because he was babysitting Mr Brumby), and the wonderful launch of the 2008 Melbourne Fringe Festival programme (more of which shortly); as well as a disappointing film or two such as Hellboy II - The Golden Army , and a good film or two - such as the wonderful, an...

Hoorah! I've been verbally spanked by Sydney's version of Andrew Bolt, the conservative sexual predator Mr Piers Ackerman, over my part in awarding the John Curtin Prize - the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Journalism - to Richard Flanagan for his passionate polemic in The Monthly last year. Finally, I can die happy!

In its 150th year, is the AFL finally ready to deal with the poisonous presence of homophobia? Richard Watts reports. Photo Credit: Wikipedia According to Australian Football League (AFL) Media Manager Patrick Keane, the AFL’s existing rules and codes of conduct are more than adequate to police a case of harassment on the basis of sexual orientation, should such a situation ever arise. “In terms of Rule 30, which is called ‘Racial and Religious Vilification’, under the terms of that, a person can lay a complaint on any form of abuse or harassment that’s directed towards them, which includes someone who abuses or harasses you for your sexual status,” Keane explains. That may be the case, but it’s also true that the AFL rule in question makes no mention of sexual orientation; instead referring only to ‘conduct which threatens, disparages, vilifies or insults another person on the basis of that person’s race, religion, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin’. Conversely, th...